"The result of the Divine displeasure against us all": an Old High sermon on the curse of civil war, during the first fast day of the American War
Today, extracts from a sermon preached on the first fast day of the war, 13th December 1776, by Joseph Butler - then Archdeacon of Surrey, appointed Bishop of Oxford in 1777 - before the House of Commons. Butler insisted that the actions of the rebellious colonists were radically different to the course of actions pursued in the Three Kingdoms in 1688 (a point that would become a vital part of Orthodox political theology as it responded to the Revolution in France):
the Preacher, in applying religious truth to civil transactions, cannot entirely overlook the principal Facts he receives from public authority and obvious appearances. Both these concur, in the present case, in supplying him with the unhappy reflexion, which it would be false candour to dissemble, that many of our fellow-subjects in America have brought the Mischiefs of War upon themselves and us, by taking up arms against a legal Authority, legally exercised. No man, who breathes the air of this country, and feels the benefit of it, would abruptly, or too severely, censure any exercise of Liberty. There was a time, when lawful Resistance was treated as a contradiction in terms. Thanks to some great Names, who have speculated upon the Rights of Mankind, and to some greater Worthies, who have struggled for them, we have discovered, that Resistance may not only be necessary, but that it may be lawful, that it may even be meritorious. I need not add, that the Discovery has produced and secured to us the Happiness, religious and civil, we enjoy. But Resistance to a legal Authority, exercising none but legal powers, for the attainment of legal purposes, is not one of the Privileges contended for in the last Century; and no system of religion and morals, no principles of civil Society, will countenance it. We might appeal to the hearts of our American fellow-subjects, if their hearts were cool enough to admit the appeal, by what name to describe Resistance to an authority, so constituted, and so exerted. But, evident as it is, that they are engaged in REBELLION, it is a further melancholy consideration before us, that the instruments of War cannot, in suppressing so dangerous an Evil, distinguish the different degrees of Guilt in the hearts of those who commit it; for we may presume, without a detail of facts, that very few of them in comparison act upon the deliberate Judgment of their own minds.
Understanding the rebellion to be an expression of "the Divine displeasure", this called for both pity towards the rebels and penitence on the part of loyal subjects:
Among the various lights, in which such an event will be considered at this distance, the most instructive is that, which, by exhibiting the true Cause, fills us with religious awe. It is, as the sublime Prophet speaks, "the shaking of the hand of the Lord of Hosts, which he shaketh over us". This will not indeed alter the nature of their Guilt, but it will place our minds in the right posture for Humiliation, and dispose us at the same time to sympathise in their distress, as the result of the Divine displeasure against us all. If we consider them, as seduced to the ruin of their country; as looking back with regret every man at his own home, at the Liberty and Affluence he enjoyed, before the preparations for War laid every thing about him waste, and before his own part in it impoverished his family, soured his own temper with Anger, Hatred and Malice, and at last dejected his mind, with the severe Mortification of having inconsiderately relinquished perhaps for ever, the solid Blessings of life; we cannot with Indifference, nor without serious reflexions, behold a large number of Fellow-creatures, in Language and Blood our Countrymen, so self-condemned, and afflicted under the mighty Hand of God.
Butler's thoughts then turned to the Loyalists in the colonies, as he characterised the conflict as a civil war:
If the instruments of Guilt have so strong a Claim to our Compassion, what shall we say to the much harder lot of loyal Subjects, in that distracted Scene, whose sufferings are more intimately ours; who aggravate the Oppressions they undergo, by maintaining a Character, which silently reproaches their Oppressors; who, without participating in the Guilt of it, have tasted the bitter Fruits of Rebellion, in being deprived, along with their Property, of the Blessings of a happy free Government, and falling under a Tyranny, which, like all real Tyrannies, it is at the same time meritorious and penal to resist. Their sufferings have been too great and too various, to be minutely remembered, on a day, which may be better employed than in Accusation. Many of them have had recourse to their original Parent, the British Nation, for the poor Comfort of personal safety, whilst the uncertain state of their families and friends, the Ravage and Desolation of their country, are uppermost in their thoughts. God knows, these are not in them the Horrors of a gloomy Imagination; they are founded in many instances in history of the peculiar Animosity of Civil Wars, in many Facts, transmitted from that seat of complicated Distress, and in the violence always observable on the side, that is acting against Reason.
Turning to Great Britain, and noting that "very little observation upon any similar state of things, will incline us to deprecate, most earnestly, the possible mischiefs of a Civil War, however distant", the sermon urges both on theological and civil grounds a reconciliation after the defeat of the rebellion:
Success to our Arms, is always the laudable Wish and Prayer of every friend to his country. But the most favourable Events of War are never desirable for their own sake. It is for the sake of Peace, the ultimate Object of War, that considerate men receive, with joyful Acclamations, the news of a Victory, especially over a people, whom we wish to preserve and reconcile. We are therefore concerned in point of Humanity, of Christian Charity, and, if I may venture so far out of my Province before this great Assembly, we are concerned in point of true Policy, to beseech that Almighty Being, in whose disposal the hearts of all men are, to turn the hearts and minds of our deluded fellow-subjects, that they may "follow after the things that make for peace", and instead of endeavouring to strengthen the hands of Men, whose Designs cannot be executed without the Ruin of their country, return for Protection to the Power, to which it naturally belongs to protect and defend every part of the Empire, and the Power, from which every part can most effectually receive Protection and Defence.
Butler's sermon is indicative of the seriousness of Old High political theology as the polity was shaken by the American rebellion. Although not explicitly mentioned, the events of the 1640s and 1650s were clearly still casting a long, dark shadow, emphasising the nature of civil war as an expression of divine wrath. This understanding that the conflict was a civil war is a theme that has re-emerged in recent accounts of the Revolutionary War. It is worth reflecting on this fear of civil war as "the result of the Divine displeasure against us all" in light of bloody post-Cold War experiences and the increasingly bitter divisions in the contemporary political order.
The acceptance of the constitutional settlement of the Glorious Revolution was, as noted above, a fundamental characteristic of Orthodox post-1760 political theology. This was not a new development, with most earlier 18th century High Churchmen having accepted the Revolutionary Settlement. In other words, romantic notions of the High Church tradition being defined by Jacobite allegiance need to be dismissed. With the American rebellion a rejection of the constitutional order established by the events of 1688-89, Old High political theology affirmed the ordered liberty of the Glorious Revolution as a blessing, received with gratitude and without reservation.
Finally, the theological seriousness with which Old High preaching addressed the American rebellion is particularly worth reflecting upon. The tradition of weighty, meaningful sermons on civic and political occasions ensured that Anglicanism offered a substantive vision of our common life, of what it means to love God and love neighbour in the realities of a political community. The loss of this tradition - particularly in our own context of the early 21st century, amidst great fears, deepening divisions, and intense conflicts - has undermined Anglicanism's public witness and cultural presence. And that is a good reason for us to read and consider Old High sermons from an earlier time, a time of fearful civil war, geopolitical challenge and change, and profound uncertainty.
(The painting is Howard Pyle's 1897 depiction of the Battle of Bunker Hill, 17th June 1775.)
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